The origin of my consideration of what the principles of restorative process might be began at a Restorative Circles learning event with Dominic Barter in Rochester 2010, and I've been thinking about ever since. Lately, I've been mentioning it to people as it arises in whatever we're doing, usually considering conflict or healthy social systems, so it's been coming up a lot, and I thought to write it out here, to share and also reach to develop it more.

In culling these out, I'm looking at the degree to which what we're doing is restorative and then asking, what is/is not there? The idea (also first inspired by Dominic Barter) is that the degree to which any one of these is absent, whatever we're doing is that much less likely to be restorative. And likewise, the more they are present, the more restorative whatever we're doing is likely to be.

Right now, I'm working with six principles: inclusion, voluntariness, mutual comprehension, self-responsibility, shared power, and interdependence.

The first two, inclusion and voluntariness, I've heard about from multiple sources in the RJ field. In my experience, I've found them to be critical aspects of any restorative process, including how we live together in every day life with or without conflict. In the Restorative Circle process to address conflict, developed by Dominic Barter in Brazil beginning in the 1990's ("RC") , I see them right from the beginning and throughout. For example, in the "Pre-Circle" everyone is asked who needs to be there, and throughout the process, no one is forced to participate.

The three terms mutual comprehension, self-responsibility, and shared power come from specifically from the words used to describe the phases of the RC. The idea, as I understand it, is that we want to begin to restore connection by understanding each other, take responsibility for ourselves by looking into and sharing what we were looking for when we did whatever we did, and then share power through making decisions together about what we'd like to do going forward.

The sixth, interdependence is a state of being, which is sometimes remembered and sometimes not. I'm thinking it less as a principle and more of an overarching experience that we are always having and that restorative process supports us to remember (re + member, put it back together, yes?). One thing I'm wondering is if conflict by its nature is simply a state of dismembered consciousness of interdependence? (Hm. When I started writing I thought this might be more straightfroward to express, but there it is, such as it is.) Which is really OK, actually. Sometimes we get to Kiss the Hag to remember how much we love Her ;)

Writing this out in linear fashion, (with words in lines!) doesn't fully express it, because all of the principles inform each other, no? Just as when we move through conflict the phases don't follow each other in linear fashion. Indeed, when I try to draw it out, I think a circle (duh) or a five pointed star may more accurately represent it. i'm working on it ;)

I want to add that as wordy as all of what I just tried to express is (reflecting the challenge and depth of what it might take to understand this and live it) and the limitation of words and lines, I do find that having a list of these six principles in my head is really useful for when I feel the need to check into what's going on - when I'm looking to open up something that feels constricted in a process.

So, if any of you are doing that, considering and developing a list or some other way to frame this, will you let me know how that's going? And if you run discover another principle. will you share it with me?

I love words. Such a seemingly simple thing - a string of letters, the vibration of an utterance, can invoke something so much larger in our minds - an idea, concept. And in the case of mantra, well, there is an opening to consciousness Herself. So often (at least for me), when I get to really considering a word, I find there is so much more meaning packed inside than appears on the surface. Indeed, the original meaning of a word is often cloaked with the layers of varnish applied though years of association with all kinds of experience and cultural influence, including - and strongly I think - the effect of our "education", what we are taught to see in a word. [Try Webster's on the word "wicked", for example. It's come to mean something quite different from it's origins in wisdom.] So, "nonviolence" - a word I've been circling around since (only!) about 1997, when I started doing yoga asana got interested in what was going on beyond the pretzeley part. Nonviolence is a translation for the word ahimsa, the first yama ("observance") of classical yoga. It has also been used by the likes of Ghandi, Martin Luther King, as well as the word "nonviolent" in Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication (NVC). On a surface level, I hear that "a" means not and 'himsa" violence. Why "a-" or "non-"? Why not just say what it is? What is "himsa"? what is "violence"?

There's something deeper here. I think it speaks to the essence of who we are. But how?

Is it unnamable because it cannot be reduced to a word (I think of "Yaweh" YHWH)? My attempts to describe it in English are words like "all"ness, wholeness, completeness, perfection, Life. It's hard in English, I think, because our cultural framework is polarized: this and that, us and them, right and wrong. It goes on and on.

Then again, I think it may indeed be named in Sanskrit. The key is to see that these apparent polarities actually spiral dance as One.

This pulsation of awareness itself is known as AHAM."For this very reason the universe has flowed forth, beginning with the "a" (the Absolute..., the Transcendent...) and ending with "ha" (the fullest expansion of Power...), is made one's own [self] by bringing together the A and HA and manifesting [the word] with a Point (bindu, the nature of which is undivided awareness) and thus coming to rest in the Absolute itself. [AHAM]"The Heart of the Doctrine of Recognition, by Lord Ksemaraja, translated by Hareesh Wallis.

The dance, if you will, of "a" and "ha" comprises everything: "a" + "ha" + "m". The AHAM.

A ha! :-)

It's a point of view - well - all points of view really. It's not a do/not do thing - it's a way of seeing.

Is that not the root of nonviolence? To see, respond, take action from knowing that we are all One?

Am I the only one who thinks this "aham" looks alot like the word ahimsa? I mean, seriously, "aham" + "sa" would mean moving in the way of the "aham"... which is exactly how I understand nonviolence: behaving in concordance with the perspective that we are all made of the same stuff even and we are also simultaneously differentiated...and this is only one vowel away from ahimsa? I'm still working on getting an answer to this question, and if anyone knows - puhlease will you enlighten me? Careful, now with the Western mind which might initially organize this as - yeah, "God". Some of us might have some education to overcome. The part that says, "and I'm not God - right? There's God and not God." The door - or should I say labyrinth - opened for me when I got to wrap my mind around the possibility that I Am That, and We all Are.But what about all those times when I'm sure I Am Not? Here's the cool part - that's It too! It's about Relationship: the Nature of who we are includes forgetting our Nature. This concealment is included in our perfection! This is the dance of concealment and revelation, never "outside" of anything. And so the practice of Connection with Life is to take an attitude toward wholeness - to "strike the pose". This, even - and especially - when I'm forgetting, confusing my sense of separation with some Truth about what appear to be "myself" and "others":When you are fiercely angry or feeling joy beyond description,when you are at an impasse, not knowing what to do,when you are in terror or running for your life,know that such intense states of mind are fully permeated with the spanda,the creative vibration of divine shakti.Find her there.~ Spanda KarikasOtherwise, I'm stopping at the level of separation, good and evil, right and wrong, and this is where violence lives.

Don't stop there. That's all.

Violence at its root is believing that the Truth IS separation - and only separation - from anything. The attitude or "pose" that points beyond that belief is nonviolence.

To be nonviolent we move through and beyond, to recognize our relationship and interdependence, make our choices there. There are so many possible ways to be nonviolent. Whatever we do, we can lean into remembering wholeness, holding the pose as best as I can.

About me...

What led me into all of this (roughly in this order) is a tapestry of: life challenges (anyone not experience these?), working with personal healing and building resilience through study and practice of yoga, Nonviolent Communication, restorative justice, and other restorative practices, and simply (but not so easily sometimes) practicing Presence, engaging with and learning to love Life, including Kissing the Hag (always working on that one!). Along the way I've integrated all of this into raising three kids - now grown - and working professionally in the fields of law and education. It was in my guise as a middle school Spanish teacher from 2005-2010, that I really got to grapple with the nuts and bolts of consciously living non-violence to cultivate a co-operative, co-creative, and restorative approach in our classroom and school. Seeing so much benefit - and challenge - I just had to investigate. From 2011-2015, I stepped out of day to day teaching in order to focus, reflect, and share what I'd learned, study with leaders in the field, and nurture the sparks of restorative practice in our community by organizing and participating in learning events, supporting and facilitating Circle practices, collecting resources, and writing on the topic. This website is a result of that. Because these are intrinsically community based practices, I've found that the most accessible and beneficial way they take root is when they're integrated into daily life among people who live, work, and play together. So, today, in my personal life and as I return to my professional career, these practices inform my approach, and I continue to share about them with others as the need naturally arises.